Semana Seis: Creado Coaliciones/ Week Six: Coalition Building

“L’Union Fait la Force,” which literally means Unity Makes Strength, is the phrase that flies the flag of the Haitian nation, which after being damaged by an earthquake, gave honor to this sentence by working side by side with the thousands of international volunteers who helped in the reconstruction work. Many times we need to build coalitions to achieve our goals. If we pay attention, we may find other groups that share similar goals to ours. If we unite, we can make our voices rebound and make ourselves be heard. To establish such coalitions, we need sincere conversations without prejudice. The interns from the Hispanic, African American and Asian American Institutes, were given the task of analyzing the education reform through a simulation in order to build coalitions. To do this, we had to get rid of our mutual cultural biases and analyze the needs of our communities. It was an enriching experience for me to interact and work along side many young leaders from other races. I realized that through commitment and compromise, we moved the project forward and brought our communities together to support the nomination of our candidate in the simulation.